


Whelk

by noahwhelk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5826394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahwhelk/pseuds/noahwhelk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a little whelk-centric ficlet bc czelk tears squeak oh tangos requested an "introducing me" to teenage whelk so here ya go</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whelk

_“Mr. White asked us to all write a short essay about ourselves so he can ‘get to know’ his students. Mr. White. I’ve always felt that’s a terrible named for a white man. Or any other man. Who wants to be known by a color? But then again, who wants to be named after a sea snail? Joke’s on me, I guess.”_

Scratch that, I can’t turn that in to my teacher. Let me restart:

_“Hi, I’m Barrington Whelk, and my named translates to fair-haired sea snail. Nice to meet you. I was born in Florida, and I swear I wrestled alligators as a kid. Psych! I actually wrestled ginormous, flesh-eating bugs, unimaginable heat, and the occasional hurricane. Psych, again! I only lived in Florida for the first five years of my life, and then moved to Virginia Beach when my dad got his first six figure paycheck.”_

God, this is so lame. Czerny’s is probably amazing. Just sitting over there on his bed, typing like crazy. He’s doing that thing with his tongue, when the tip of it peeks out between his lips; he does that when he’s really onto something. Czerny probably hasn’t made a white joke about Mr. White. Probably hasn’t even thought of it. Maybe I should ask him what he’s writing. Czerny’s will probably give me the inspiration I need. No, I can’t do that. What kind of loser can’t write an essay on himself?

_“The first thing you should know about me is I am absolute shit when it comes to commitment and honor. In fact, maybe three weeks into having me as a student you will get a handsome check from my father and a neat note written on expensive, gold plated stationary asking you to please raise my grade to at least a B+. Not only am I hopeless with keeping up with school assignments and duties, I’m dating my best friend’s girlfriend. As well as my own girlfriend._

_“Now before you completely judge me and call me a spoiled, rich schmuck, I want you to know, Mr. White, that I do feel very terrible about it, and wouldn’t have even given her a second glance if she wasn’t so hot. It’s really Czerny’s fault. He shouldn’t have scored a girl so bangin’. Technically, I also scored her, but only because it turned her on that I’m her boyfriend’s best bro. You know, Czerny’s best friend. Noah Czerny. Tall, handsome, muscular, and with skin that always looks shiny, but because he’s fucking glowing, Mr. White, fucking glowi”_

Shit. This essay isn’t about Czerny, it has to be about me. Look at me! The only douchebag in the entire school who’s destined to get an F on a no-research, no-pressure one page essay on himself. Jesus Christ.

_“Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, Mr. White. I’m sitting in my dorm room and writing this, and I want you to know it is giving me quite a bit of trouble. This is probably a first for you, I mean it is definitely a first for me, but I cannot decide what to write about my own self. I could be absolutely, brain-numbingly boring and and list my birthplace, important events in my life, and my aspirations in the world, but that’s not me. I’m not a list of numbers and months, nor am I the number of zeros in my bank account balance. I’m just a seventeen year old boy, going to high school._

_“I’m Barrington Whelk, but everyone just calls me Whelk. You seem like a last-name-is-the-best-name kinda guy anyway, but please call me Whelk. I cannot stand the name Barrington. Unless of course Czerny is saying it, then I am absolutely in love with my name and want to be called my first name every second of every day._

_“Have you seen his mouth when he talks? Or not even his mouth, what about his eyes? They light up, I’m telling you, Mr. White. Fucking electric. The lines on his face perfectly spell out ‘passionate,’ and I want to read the shapes of his features all day long. With my mouth. I’m telling you I want to m”_

Fucking hell. That’s it, I’m backspacing it. All of it. There, it’s all gone.

My eyes have wandered back to Czerny again. He’s sitting back and reading over what he’s written. The bastard’s probably already done. He’s rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb and extends his hand to backspace something. He notices me looking and flashes a beautiful smile, his white teeth in perfect rows. I don’t know how a single person could be so painfully adorable.

I’m getting distracted. Let me start again.

_“Mr. White,_

_“This essay you’ve assigned is extremely difficult for me to write. I am not sure why. Maybe it’s because I feel I haven’t actually done much with my life up to this point but plain exist with a large amount of money. The story of my life can be explained by passing along the bare minimum of generic information._

_“My name is Barrington Whelk, I’m seventeen years old (eighteen in November!), and I was born in Florida. I moved to Virginia Beach when I was five, and my dad started his (immensely profitable) business. To this day, I have to admit, I’m not quite sure what he does to achieve such a high income. My mom has joked, but basically lightheartedly suggested, that he’s doing something illegal. A proposal that elicited a sinister laugh from my Dad and a shake of the head. He told her to stop being silly and pour another glass of his ‘68 whiskey. He was celebrating that night, I can’t tell you why._

_“My first pet was a lizard, I named him Ricárdo after my mom’s brother. One night it got very cold and I forgot to adjust his heat lamp. Ricárdo died._

_“The best family vacation I remember was when we went to Disneyworld and I rode on the safari ride five times in a row. I wanted to go for a sixth, but my mom was sick of the ride. Dad only joined the first two. I whined, and she got mad at me. I stopped asking to do things after that. I didn’t like it when Mom got mad._

_“In truth, I have no idea how me--a boy with a mom by the name of Margaríta and a dad called Edward--ended up named Barrington. Instead of wondering about the root of my nomenclature nowadays, I am curious of how drunk they were when they decided to conceive a child and call him such a hideous name. Apparently it’s supposed to be a surname. What the fuck, what the fuck._

_“I’m sorry, Mr. White, I’m probably not supposed to swear. In fact, why don’t you stop wasting time reading this essay and look for Czerny’s in your stack. You seem like someone who reads things in reverse alphabetical order, you know, us W last names have to stick up for the rest of the end-of-the-alphabet folk. But do yourself a favor and read his. It’s probably brilliant.”_

“Whelk, are you still writing the essay for White?” Czerny asks me. I look at him, but all I see is the human version of greatness and sunshine and I have to blink and look away.

“Yeah,” I tell him and read my last paragraph. Why do I keep veering right back to Czerny? I backspace the last paragraph completely, and take away the swear words.

“Well don’t erase a bunch, that’s, like, the worst way to move forward in an assignment, Bear.” Bear. That one’s new. “Here, let me read it, I’ll help you.”

Czerny comes over to my bed and kneels on the floor, leaning his forearms on the edge of my bed. I turn my laptop and he stares at my screen. I stare at him. The white light reflects off of the soft lump his cheekbone makes across the side of his face. The shadow, however, makes the feature look dramatic and foreboding. Who am I kidding, nothing in Czerny’s entire existence is foreboding. His sleeveless shirt shows the curves and divots of his arm muscles, and his skin looks soft like silk. I want to touch it. Better yet, maybe I could kiss it--

“Damn, Whelk, this shit is depressing as hell,” he exclaims and turns the laptop back to me after he CTRL+A’s it, and deletes. “Make a list of important, happy things that you think define you,” he suggests. Of course it’s a perfect suggestion. “No more, ‘my parents aren’t fit to raise a child’ stuff. You’re going to make ol’ White cry.”  
I give him a smile and a nod. “Fine, I’ll fill it with rainbows just for you, Noah,” I tease. He flashes his million-watt smile and glides back over to his own bed. He pulls out a history textbook and I look back at my blank document. Sigh, okay.

_“ ￫ Barrington Whelk_

_“ ￫ Seventeen_

_“ ￫ Rich”_

Ha. Good one. I glance at Czerny, he can probably read that I’m being sarcastic and unimaginative. He’s already looking at me when I turn, but he looks away the second we meet eyes.

I pull my lips into my mouth and look back at the screen. What to put. . . what to put.

I look at him again and bite back a smile.

_“ ￫ In love with Noah Czerny”_


End file.
